by Adam Thorpe
The crowd started moving into the main building. We followed them. I didn’t feel so nervous, now. I couldn’t see how there could be a theatre inside the tannery.
We walked down a bright blue corridor with notices and big shiny posters of dancers on the walls, then followed the people into a huge room like a gym. It had a stage at one end and there were rows and rows of plastic chairs. The windows were blocked with black cloth, even though it was getting dark outside. Most of the stage was hidden by thick red curtains, but a bit stuck out in front. There were wooden bars around the walls, like exercise bars, with long mirrors above them. The floorboards were very smooth and shiny and the metal beams high above were painted yellow and mauve. There were several gas heaters flaring on the walls. We sat down near the front, Jocelyne’s mother sitting in between me and my mother.
‘I’ve always said that I did my bit for total equality by marrying him,’ she went on, as if we hadn’t done anything since leaving the house. ‘That was quite enough. I don’t mean to be gauche about it, Danielle, but it was rather a bold thing to do, in my family – marrying someone of Raymond’s background. Doesn’t often work, you know. The divide is simply too great. He’s so very brilliant but he does go on. He seems to be getting terribly slow. Did you notice? Perhaps they all get slow. Men.’
My mother was searching in her handbag. She brought out her little powder-puff and powdered her nose again, saying ‘oh yes’ a few times. Powder spilt onto her skirt. The chairs filled up. I needed to go to the toilet properly, but only from nerves. It wasn’t very warm in the huge room, although the heaters were flaring away on the wall. People were chattering everywhere. I put my hand into my inside pocket and touched the cut-out page, folded into four. It was like a secret document. It made me feel special, as a secret agent must feel special. I wondered if Joce-lyne was watching us somehow from the other side of the curtain. I tried to look handsome.
‘She’s bound to catch a chill,’ said Jocelyne’s mother. ‘There’s never enough heating and they wear nothing underneath, of course. It would show, you see. Ask Raymond about it. He’ll give you a very long lecture on the hidden ideology of ballet.’
‘That sounds very interesting,’ said my mother, in a weak voice. ‘Raymond was always a reader.’
I hated seeing her like this: she was like my deflated plastic chair.
There were two huge speakers each side of the curtains and they suddenly blasted out some classical music. The music stopped with a deafening click, leaving an ugly buzzing noise. The speakers clicked again and the buzzing died away. People giggled. The main lights went down and someone clapped. There was one light left on the curtains: it made a bright round patch split by the folds. The light came from one of the projectors hanging on a rail above us: I hadn’t noticed them before. I started to have butterflies, but a nicer sort than usual. Everything was in darkness except for this one bright patch on the curtains, a bit like a moon. It expanded and contracted slightly because someone hidden was moving the curtains from behind. I imagined the village behind, looking like the Alsace village on our 1968 calendar in the kitchen. The people had gone almost silent, except for one person chattering at the back. Ssh, someone went. I felt very excited, as if something incredible was about to happen. The circle of light got smaller and smaller, like the picture crackling down to nothing on the TV but in slow motion. The circle went right down to nothing, too, but stayed in front of my eyes as a blob, turning yellow and blue and green. The classical music came on very softly, without any buzzing, and the curtains started to open a bit jerkily. It was more like the cinema, I thought; except here there were real people instead of the screen.
Yellow houses were lit up on either side of the stage; they looked as if they were made out of paper, with windows and doors cut out crookedly. They didn’t look realistic at all, especially as they had some red rectangles like bricks painted on them. The roofs were crooked and painted blue. On the first floor of each house there was a pink curtain, as if covering a window. At the back was an outside view of woods and snowy mountains, but not like proper woods and mountains – the trees were simple triangles of green and the mountains were more like grey tents. Big paper flowers were stuck in baskets in front of them. Dust floated in the beams of light pouring down. I glanced up at Jocelyne’s mother in the darkness. Her head was tilted back and her little face looked quite stern. Her perfume made me feel posh. The blob jerked about in front of me every time I blinked, fading into purple. Maybe it’ll stay there forever, I thought. I wondered if anyone else had it or whether it was to do with migraine.
A boy came on in a waiter’s waistcoat and put some metal chairs out. He was pretending to smoke, and exaggerated it. Then someone made up as an old man, with a big hooked nose and beard, opened the curtains on one of the windows – which was, in fact, a big square opening with a wooden balustrade across it. He wheeled into this opening a modern wheelchair with a girl in it. He dusted the girl with a cloth, as I’d dust our vacuum cleaners in the showroom. The girl was a sort of dummy, dressed in a big white tutu that poked out from the wheelchair. Then he left. I reckoned the dummy must be Coppélia, the mechanical doll, sitting on what was meant to be a balcony. The wheelchair was exactly like Mademoiselle Bolmont’s. The music suddenly burst out louder into a sort of flowing sound and I felt carried along by it, although it was the sort of music I didn’t usually like and would move the dial on from if I found it on the radio.
A real live girl was opening the curtains on the other side and waving at the doll. She looked annoyed when the doll didn’t wave back. She disappeared and then popped up on stage. She was dressed in a sort of bright red swimsuit with black circles on it and a little frill at the bottom. She did some dancing to attract the doll’s attention, not realising it was a doll, and everyone clapped at the end.
The dancing amazed me. I couldn’t work out how anyone could move across the floor like that without walking. Some of it was just like Carole’s dance in the ward. She kept going up on tiptoe on one foot and twirling round, without pushing herself off: I couldn’t work out how she did it without strings or a motor.
I felt strange because I had almost immediately fallen in love with the dancer, as if she was giving off a special power. The old man – Dr Coppélius, I reckoned – came onto the stage and imitated her. The audience made a sort of low grunting noise all together and then the boy’s whiskers half fell off and there was real laughter. Then a teenage boy came on and I realised that the first girl was Swanilda and that this was Franz. He was dressed in tight red shorts and a sweatshirt with 68 in a black circle on the back. He had a big nose and goggly eyes and was very tall and thin. He danced to attract the doll’s attention and suddenly it started to move, turning its head and waving an arm from the balcony. It wasn’t a dummy but a real girl, in fact, acting the mechanical doll.
Then, after more dancing between Franz and Swanilda, lots of dancers came on, dressed in more frilly swimsuit-type things. These were orange, with little black circles sewn on the back and green wavy lines on the front. There were a few boys, and they were in blue outfits more like builders’ overalls.
I’d completely forgotten about Jocelyne and remembered with a jolt and began to search for her among the faces, but the faces kept swirling about above the bodies, mixing together and then disappearing behind each other. At last I found her and my heart leapt up and started beating very hard. I wondered what I was doing here. I started to wish I hadn’t come. Her hair was scraped right back and her face was bigger without the curls all round it. Her ears stuck out and she had a silly bun on the top of her head, exactly as if someone had stuck a brioche there. The scraped-back hair made me think again of Carole, and I suddenly sank down into a sad feeling. The music was jolly but all I could think of was Carole, messing her hair up in the ward.
Jocelyne didn’t make me feel what I had felt for the dancer playing Swanilda. In fact, it was hard for me to watch her. I had thought about her so much and now I c
ould hardly stand watching her.
The music sounded scratchy now and again, as if it was too loud for the speakers. Jocelyne’s mother covered her ears at those moments. I couldn’t swallow. Jocelyne was bouncing about with a cross expression on her face and at one point slipped over and had to get up again very quickly. Her mother put her hand on her mouth, shaking her head. I kept seeing Carole in the home, messing up her hair. All these girls had their hair scraped right back, just as Carole had wanted to have it; it made their foreheads high and some of them looked as if they had a receding hairline, like my uncle or Raymond.
One of the black circles had fallen off and was being trampled on by the dancers’ feet. The dancing went on and on with this big group; I’d almost got used to it and it didn’t seem so amazing any more and the music flowed over me as if I wasn’t really hearing it. People in the audience kept coughing in the quiet bits. Swanilda and Franz danced in front but I was never quite sure what was happening between them; the story I knew didn’t seem to fit. A man in a top hat and baggy suit came on and read something from a clipboard. I couldn’t think who he was.
Everyone was clapping, now, including my mother and Jocelyne’s mother. Then the stage was empty – though I couldn’t see for sure that it was completely empty because my eyes were blurred from the sad feeling. It had got warm, the huge heaters burning away either side. My forehead was all sweaty.
Jocelyne had looked silly, and I felt somehow ashamed by this. Her ears had stuck out. She’d looked cross when she was supposed to be happy and she had slipped over with the brioche staying fixed on her head. The page I’d cut out from the library book poked into my chest. The lights went a dark, bluish colour and the music got slower. I wanted to get out. My migraine had not quite gone, although it wasn’t getting worse.
Dr Coppélius was coming out of his house, locking it up with a giant key. I was worried his whiskers would half fall off again. I suddenly heard a voice like a hiss in my ear.
‘Do you know the story, Gilles? The alternative title is The Girl with Emerald Eyes. Much prettier than the eponymous Coppélia. It’s a clue, of course, The Girl with Emerald Eyes. The original Hoffmann story is called The Sandman, of course. Horribly sinister.’
I said I did know the ballet story. I wasn’t sure she’d heard. Her breath had blown into my ear as she’d whispered; it smelt a bit sweet, like cognac.
‘What did you think of Jossi?’ she asked.
I gulped and nodded.
‘Easily the best,’ I said.
She chuckled. ‘I won’t dispute your professional judgement, young man.’
Someone behind told us to shush. The music got louder. Dr Coppélius was surrounded by the boys in blue overalls and they pushed him and he dropped his giant key. I couldn’t think what she’d meant. Swanilda came on with her friends but I couldn’t concentrate and the next thing I knew Franz was climbing a big ladder up to the balcony as the music boomed a few times and the curtains were closing and everyone was clapping. I joined in, wondering why the end of the story was so different.
‘Of course, it’s very much a simplified version,’ said Jocelyne’s mother after the clapping had turned into chairs scraping and people chatting. ‘It’s not the original choreography.’
‘Lovely,’ said my mother. ‘Ever so clever, I think. Lovely colours.’
‘The original is full of frightfully difficult steps. I mean, Swanilda only did two brisés volés in the Slavic dance there but she’s supposed to do eight. And as for the cabrioles! What did you think of the mazurka, by the way?’
My mother blinked, her mouth open.
‘Were those funny houses meant to be cottages?’ I asked, saving her.
Jocelyne’s mother leaned towards me, sideways, as if she was on a funfair ride. ‘It’s symbolic, Gilles. It’s symbolic and for the stage. Very Cubist. Suggestive of doll’s houses.’
‘I see.’
She straightened up again.
‘Really ever so clever,’ said my mother, searching for something in her handbag. ‘Ever so clever. Ever so lovely colours.’
‘It was quite short,’ I said.
‘The first Act is,’ said Jocelyne’s mother. ‘The second’s longer. Then there’s that tedious old masque that goes on for an eternity. Usually cut these days, but Jossi said that Terry – that’s the homo American – adores it. And he’s supposed to be modern! Mind you, what a relief not to see tutus sticking out all over the place. Except for Coppélia’s, but that’s meant. Ballerinas as a type of automaton, all that. I could kill for a fag.’
We got up and joined the people filing down the narrow aisle, as if we were going out of church.
‘Yes, to show how they’re robots, really, wind-up dolls,’ Jocelyne’s mother went on, half to herself. ‘Learning all the steps over and over. Hardly free expression, is it, ballet? Who said, “Ballet is a type of more or less complicated machinery”? Was it Nijinsky or Noverre?’
‘Not sure.’
‘Anyway, Jossi explained it to me, the symbolic meaning. I’m not that sharp!’
‘Yes.’
I realised, shuffling down the aisle with the other people, that she wasn’t much taller than me.
‘They do believe in being right up-to-date here,’ she went on. ‘Trying to make it relevant to modern times. As our priest says – Jesus didn’t grow his hair long for nothing! We can go out properly if you want. If you want to pee you have to go out, of course.’
She seemed nervous, chatting away like this. We joined the other people going into the courtyard, but it was drizzling and so we stayed in the corridor. It was quite cramped. Almost everyone was dressed smartly and I felt less stupid in my clothes. Jocelyne’s mother found more friends and again they were talking about students protesting and police hitting people. I couldn’t stop thinking of Mademoiselle Bolmont in the same wheelchair as the one on stage – she even had thick make-up like the doll’s. The noise of everyone chatting was like water coming up over my ears. There were other boys about my age who seemed to know each other: they must be the brothers of the dancers, I thought. They had smart hair-styles and leather belts with S-shaped buckles like snakes and threw their heads back when they laughed. Their shirt-cuffs were unbuttoned and one of them was standing on roller-skates in a leather jacket, even though he was inside. He stared at me as if I was really stupid-looking. Their trousers seemed lower around the waist than mine. Jocelyne must think I’m a joke, I thought, compared to these boys living near her. I couldn’t work out why I’d never asked for roller-skates, even though they were all the rage at school. Jocelyne’s mother was asking me something. Her friends had disappeared.
‘Pardon?’
‘Geneviève’s asking you something, dear,’ said my mother. She was smoking one of Jocelyne’s mother’s thin cigarettes. They came from Morocco and smelt very sweet but were not hashish, Jocelyne’s mother had laughed.
‘Never mind. I was only asking you if you’d ever seen ballet before.’
‘I don’t think you have, have you?’ my mother said, quickly.
‘I have.’
‘Where?’
‘In—’
‘I don’t think you’ve ever seen proper ballet,’ my mother interrupted, with a frown – as if telling me off.
‘Yes I have.’
‘Where?’ asked Jocelyne’s mother, blowing smoke out of the corner of her mouth.
‘In a programme. On the TV.’
She laughed. ‘We don’t have a television.’
‘Schneider are good,’ said my mother, looking at her as if she needed help. ‘Very good screen. We know an excellent supplier, very honest, quite a bit cheaper than the shops and he does you instalments, monthly or bi-monthly.’
Jocelynes mother scratched her lip and looked away, not replying.
‘Isn’t it, Gilles?’ my mother went on. ‘Very clear picture.’
I gave the tiniest shrug. I was annoyed with her. She was embarrassing. A kind of poison was rising in
me, a nastiness that wanted her to go away with her handbag and her mauve hat and her Nana Mouskouri spectacles twitching on her nose. Jocelyne’s mother was dressed exactly right and even her brown little face fitted in, here. Even her weird grey eyes. I could have been her son, to the other people.
I stood next to her and pretended to be her son. I didn’t actually do anything, just felt it inside, as if her appley perfume and sweet cigarette were a kind of magic covering. It felt nice, pretending. It was almost as if I was her son for real. As if my actual face was changing. She had started to talk about some charity work she was doing for poor children in slums. I suddenly realised, with a strangled feeling in my throat, why my real mother had interrupted me. She had thought I was going to say that the first time I had seen ballet was in the mental ward – that I was going to tell Jocelyne’s mother about Carole’s nude dance. Jocelyne’s mother’s lips moved in and out as she talked to my actual mother and smoked, but I wasn’t listening. I was thinking how shameful it was, having a sister who did things like that. Looking around me, I couldn’t imagine the people here having problems like that. We went back to our seats.
The second part had a completely different scene; it looked like a laboratory, all white with wires and test-tubes and a huge computer with lots of dials and switches and tape-reels painted on the wall to look 3-D. Three lit-up tubes with fluorescent globs floating inside them, like the expensive ones you could buy as lamps, were placed on a shiny black box with ULTIMATE SCIENCE painted on it, in English. There was a table to the right and a big square window at the back; from the way the light fell on it I could tell that it wasn’t made of plate glass but transparent plastic. There were five or six dancers standing around the edge of the stage, disguised as robots in silvery costumes and faces: they tried to keep very still in the weird orange light but I could see them sort of trembling.